Georgia with children

That is the good news, and it is real. The constraint is equally real and it is the driving. Georgia is a small country made large by mountain roads, and a route that works beautifully for two adults can be a difficult week for a seven-year-old.

Here is what works, what does not, and the six changes we make.

Why Georgia is easy with children

It is safe. Ordinary crime is very low and children are treated as everybody’s business in the best sense.

The food has a big mild category. Bread, cheese, cucumber and tomato salad, khinkali with potato or cheese filling, mchadi corn bread, roast chicken, watermelon in summer. Fussy eaters do fine here, which is not true everywhere in the region. What to eat in Georgia has the full repertoire.

It is cheap. A family room in a guesthouse is $40 to $70, and food and entries barely register. That means you can afford the thing that actually makes family travel work, which is a private car and driver rather than public transport.

There are no health complications. No malaria, no required vaccinations beyond routine ones, tap water in Tbilisi from mountain sources, hospitals in Tbilisi and Kutaisi and a clinic in Mestia.

Nothing is high enough to matter. The highest you would sleep on a family route is around 5,700 feet (1,740 m) at Stepantsminda. Altitude is simply not a factor in Georgia.

What genuinely works

Caves. Georgia has two categories and children like both. The Prometheus and Sataplia caves near Kutaisi are lit walkways through real formations, with a boat section at Prometheus and dinosaur footprints at Sataplia. Uplistsikhe near Gori is a rock-cut town you scramble around in the open air, which is better than it sounds.

Vardzia. A twelfth-century cave city on thirteen levels cut into a cliff, with tunnels and stairs. For children over about six this is the best single sight in Georgia and there is no competition. It is a long day from Tbilisi and it needs a night at Akhaltsikhe to work properly.

Castles and fortresses. Narikala above Tbilisi with the cable car up. The Rabati fortress at Akhaltsikhe, which has been rebuilt so thoroughly that it reads as new, and which children therefore like more than adults do. Ananuri on the Military Highway, on the reservoir, with towers to climb.

Water. The Martvili canyon boat ride, twenty minutes on a rubber dinghy through a green gorge, is a reliable hit. The Okatse canyon walkway is a suspended path on the cliff face. Lake Lisi and Turtle Lake above Tbilisi are easy afternoons.

The cable cars. Tbilisi has two, Chiatura has the Soviet-era ones, and Georgia has a general enthusiasm for putting cable cars in unlikely places that children find excellent.

Animals. Working farms in Kakheti, horses in the mountains, the shepherd dogs at a safe distance, and cows on the road, which never stops being funny.

Tbilisi’s Mtatsminda Park. An amusement park at the top of a funicular with a ferris wheel and a view over the whole city. It is unashamedly a fairground and it buys you an entire evening of goodwill.

What does not work

Long mountain days. The Abano Pass into Tusheti is four to five hours of single-track gravel with drops and no barrier, each way. We do not put children on it, and we would not put most adults on it without a conversation first.

Ushguli as a day trip. Two hours each way from Mestia on a rough road in a 4×4. If you want Ushguli with children, sleep there.

Monastery days in sequence. Georgian churches are wonderful and one a day is the ceiling with children. Two is a negotiation and three is a mutiny.

Tbilisi in August afternoons. Mid nineties Fahrenheit (about 35°C) on stone with no shade. The old town in August between noon and four is not a place to walk with a small child.

Wine days as adults imagine them. Two cellars and a long lunch is an adult day. One cellar, where the family has a yard and animals and the children can run, is a family day and it is genuinely better.

Batumi as a beach holiday. The beach is pebbles, the sea drops away steeply, and the city is casinos and towers. There are better ways to spend two days.

The six changes we make

1. Fewer bases, longer stays. Three bases in ten days instead of five. Tbilisi, Kakheti, and either Kazbegi or Kutaisi. Unpacking once buys more happiness than any single sight.

1. Drive legs capped at three hours. With a stop in the middle that is not a petrol station. On the Military Highway that means Ananuri fortress and the Zhinvali reservoir. On the way west it means the Surami roadside bread sellers and Uplistsikhe.

1. One thing a day, chosen by the child. We build the mornings and leave the afternoons genuinely empty. The pool, the yard, the lake, the cartoon in the room. Nobody remembers the fourth church and everybody remembers the afternoon they were allowed to do nothing.

1. Guesthouses over hotels. A family guesthouse with a garden, a dog, a grandmother and a table beats a four star hotel every time in Georgia, and it costs a third as much. The one exception is Tbilisi, where a hotel with a pool in summer earns its rate.

1. Kazbegi over Svaneti, or Svaneti over Tusheti. Stepantsminda is three hours from Tbilisi on a paved road, has real hotels and an easy valley walk at Juta or Truso. Svaneti is reachable on a paved road to Mestia and works well for children over about eight. Tusheti is not a family region.

1. A driver rather than a rental car. This costs $80 to $120 a day for the vehicle and it is the best money in the budget. It means somebody else deals with Georgian traffic, the car seat is arranged in advance, and the stops happen when a child needs them rather than when the map allows them.

By age, roughly

Under 4. Tbilisi, Kakheti and one easy region. Guesthouses with gardens. Short drives. Georgia is easy at this age precisely because expectations are low and the country is affectionate.

5 to 9. The sweet spot. Caves, castles, cable cars, canyon boats, Vardzia, horses. Our ten-day family route is built for this range.

10 to 14. Add walking. The Gergeti Trinity Church climb from Stepantsminda, about an hour and a half up, is achievable and is a genuine achievement. Chalaadi glacier in Svaneti is four hours return on an easy track. Horse riding in Kazbegi or Svaneti.

15 and over. Everything, including the Mestia to Ushguli traverse over four days with bags carried. This is a good age for a first multi-day trek and Georgia is a good place for it.

When to go with children

May, June and September. July and August are hot in the lowlands and the mountains are busy, though August is the only reliable month for the highest villages. October is beautiful but the mountain roads start closing.

School holidays usually force July or August, and if that is your situation we move the trip up and north: more nights at altitude where it is cooler, Tbilisi as a morning and evening city, and a hotel with a pool. Georgia month by month sets out the trade-offs.

Practical notes

• Car seats. We arrange them with our Tbilisi partner in advance. Say the ages when you enquire rather than at the airport.
• Cash. Cards work in Tbilisi and the larger towns. Carry lari in the mountains.
• Pharmacies. Good and widespread in cities, sparse in the mountains. Bring what you rely on.
• Nappies and formula. Widely available in Tbilisi and larger towns, unreliable in villages.
• Dogs. The one real safety briefing. Flock guardians in the mountains are working animals and not pets, and children should be told plainly not to approach them.
• Monastery dress. Covered shoulders and knees apply to children too at the stricter sites.

How we run Georgia

GO EAST staffs its own offices in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. Georgia is not one of them. We run it through a Tbilisi partner we have used for years, whose drivers and guides meet you on the ground, briefed by us, with your consultant on the same WhatsApp thread from take-off to landing.

Plan this trip

Tell us the ages of your children and how many days you have, and a specialist will build a route with the legs capped and the afternoons left alone. Free first outline, no obligation.

Start planning

Keep reading

• Georgia: the complete guide to planning your trip
• Georgia month by month
• Tbilisi in three days
• Asia with children
• Georgia with children, 10 days
• All our Georgia trips

Frequently asked questions